Category: Video Games

Back in 2008, the video game landscape was changing. No longer was a decent single player experience good enough for the gamer holding the purse strings, instead the demand was high for as good a multiplayer element as it was for any solo campaign, setting developers a tough task.

One idea many developers utilised was to make the campaign itself multiplayer by introducing co-op. Gears Of War was already setting the standard for such a social gameplay element, and Halo was soon to follow suit so Electronic Arts chose to jump on the bandwagon, the result of which was Army Of Two. Telling the tale of mercenaries Salem and Rios, the game saw you undertake objectives which relied entirely on your ability to co-operate, celebrating each boss take down with ridiculous amounts of air-guitaring and high-fiving. A wise-cracking macho load of old posturing nonsense with mildly flawed AI if playing solo, the game was, nevertheless, huge fun and sold enough to warrant a sequel.

The 40th Day built on the successful formula, making everything bigger and louder, adding morality moments to choose between and a greater sense of scenic destructibility. Moving away from the Afghanistan conflict, the game took in the sights and sounds of Shanghai but still kept with the terrorism theme. The cover system was improved (hiding behind a dead rhino in the zoo level being a particular highlight) and the game delivered a decent story which expanded the AOT universe, leading us nicely to today and the third game in the series, The Devil’s Cartel.

Perhaps concerned that doing the ‘global terror nutjob’ thing was stepping on Call Of Duty’s toes a little too much, this third game in the series is a far more localised effort. Taking place in Mexico, the game moves away from Salem and Rios and focuses on two Trans World Operations (see what they did there?) agents, Alpha and Bravo as they attempt to take down the deadly drug cartel La Guadana.

The original characters do still feature in the game, and the crazy masks are all present and correct, but there is a lot less of the over-the-top machismo, preferring to leave the banter to a few post-firefight wise-cracks. It seems a shame to have the original characters sidelined in this way, especially in the first three quarters of the game, and to not build up any sort of back story for the new playable heroes (other than one has ‘a girl’ back home, yawn) is a touch odd, but at the end of the day this is a game about destruction on an epic scale and that’s one way in which it truly delivers.

Despite the reliance on cover-based shooting, you never feel 100% safe behind your crumbling position and coupled with your enemy’s unerring accuracy with grenades, this adds a huge amount of tension to proceedings. You’re aided throughout by the returning Overkill system which turns you invincible and increases the power of your bullets for a short time, but with both yourself and your partner able to trigger this ability, it does make things a little too easy at times, even if it is fun to destroy reams of scenery in one ridiculously fiery 30 second burst.

The scoring system will also probably divide people, as the game splits itself into 50-odd sections, interspersed with brief ‘how many kills did you get’ calculations. Personally, I preferred these short interludes as an opportunity to reset my weaponry and buy new gear, and they do a good job of getting rid of chunky loading times completely, but it’s never abundantly clear how to get the big, big points or how you will be rewarded for obtaining them.

As for the setting, Mexico is really pretty in all its HD glory but it also seems to be a heck of a desolate place. You don’t come across any locals other than those who want to shoot your brains out (and even they all look pretty similar) and although the game looks very good graphically, it does all feel a bit done to death in the shooter genre, with the traditional quarries, mansions, churches and inner city slums all playing a part in the story.

The third game in the AOT series also feels a lot more stripped down than previous instalments. On my play through I didn’t control any vehicles, instead I only had the option to man helicopter machine guns or occasionally jump on the back of a truck to decimate small armies. These sections were still enjoyable, if mindless, but the lack of variety and linearity to the levels will challenge those used to choosing your own way through a game.

It’s probably in this mindlessness that The Devil’s Cartel lets itself down the most. I’m not a huge fan of strategy titles but the first two games in the series did at least make you use simple decisioning to get through most levels. This time out, it’s generally enough just to shoot everything in sight with little consideration for how to flank shielded foes or use your ally intelligently. The ability to team up behind a single shield is still there, but I only realised this right at the end in a set-piece that gave me no other choice.

There were also a couple of major glitches which required either a complete Xbox reboot or at least a trip back to the not-that-recent previous checkpoint, all of which should really have been patched a couple of months as it is after release. Moving from cover to cover is also frustrating on occasion, with the complete lack of ability for your character to roll or jump almost heresy in this day and age.

Yes, it is possible to rattle through The Devil’s Cartel in a day or two, but after the initial realisation that you’re just going to be shooting bandana man and cowboy hat man (oh, and the odd bulletproof vest man) for a few hours, the game is actually fun. The story is a little cliched but still takes the franchise further and there is more to it than just taking down a generic Mexican drug lord, but I’ll leave it spoiler-free for now. The shooting itself is solid, despite the customisable weaponry being a little soulless, and the explosions can be absolutely joyful to witness. Plus let’s face it, if you’re a fan of the franchise, you know exactly what you’re letting yourself in for.

Army Of Two: The Devil’s Cartel may set its own universe on fire frequently but it wont do the same to the real world. Nevertheless, this is still a solid enough addition to the franchise, staying just about fun and brash enough to stand toe-to-toe with its rivals. Next time out though, EA are going to have to come up with something a bit more special or it’ll be over and out from the masked marauders once and for all.

I don’t usually review video games for a variety of reasons, the main one being that I never have the time these days to really plough through a game straight after release and then cobble together something that is both timely and reflective of the full experience.

There is, however, one exception to this rule. Back in 2007, 2K Games released an intriguing little shooter called BioShock. A spiritual successor to the System Shock games, the sinister underwater setting and core production values instantly installed the game as one of my all-time favourites, and I would go to bed at night with the Circus of Values chimes running over and over in my head. Finally a game had harnessed modern console power to produce a stunningly immersive experience and a storyline in which you actually gave two hoots about the main characters.

Six years on and after the not-quite-as-good BioShock 2, we finally get the game we’ve been waiting for; BioShock Infinite. Early trailers and screens had given away the theme, with 2K taking the setting from fathoms below the Earth to miles above it in the floating city of Columbia, its gleaming spires hiding something sinister within.

The story is pretty simple in theory, even going so far as to mirror the earliest of Donkey Kong games; rescue the girl. But that is where the simplicities end. As lead protagonist Booker DeWitt, you are charged with not only finding the girl in question, Elizabeth, but also uncovering exactly what debts you will be repaying by doing so, and exploring the majestic flying city as you do.

To cover off the full plot would take another 2000 words, and as the game really needs to be experienced I’m not going to go into too much detail here. It doesn’t give too much away to say that Columbia is governed by Father Zachary Comstock, leader of a group called the Founders who strive to keep Columbia orderly against the rising discontent of revolutionaries the Vox Populi. A self-proclaimed ‘Prophet’, Comstock spends his time warning his people against the coming of the False Shepherd who is said to be responsible for bringing about Columbia’s downfall.

The city is a brilliant dystopia, rivalling Rapture as a morally ambiguous haven for saints and sinners. Throughout the game, you’ll come across various other characters from businessmen and scientists to shopkeepers and slaves who you can choose to treat either with respect or disdain, depending on your reading of the game’s society and of your character’s motivation.

Weaponry comes in the form of the usual line-up of pistols, shotguns, machine guns, sniper rifles and RPGs, all of which can be upgraded to the hilt, whilst kit parcels hidden amongst Columbia’s buildings give you special abilities which can be swapped in and out depending on the enemy you’re fighting at the time.

Of course, you can’t have a BioShock game without some supernatural special powers and just as the original had plasmids, here we have vigors which provide you with magical, mystical abilities. Powered by salts, the vigors feature amongst their number the ability to unleash a quite literal murder of ravens upon your foes, the power to shoot Sith-like crackles of electricity at all and sundry, or a talent for possessing machines and humans to do your bidding. All of the vigors have a secondary ability too in the form of traps which can be laid in the path of on-rushing foes, adding a nice tactical element to proceedings.

The combination of weaponry (right trigger) and vigors (left) works exceptionally well, and you’ll quickly be raining bullets down on enemies before finishing them off with an electrical burst or bull in a china shop charge.

The other part of your arsenal is the Sky-Hook. Created for attaching yourself to the monorail system that coils around Columbia, the wrist-based hook can not only be used for speeding around the city, but also as a melee weapon with which to batter your opponents.

An integral part of the game is Elizabeth herself and again it isn’t really a spoiler to say that you will travel with her for some of your journey. Elizabeth serves a few purposes and most importantly, she looks after herself. The game would have been severely hampered if 2K had focused on you having to constantly watch her back, so it’s pleasing to see the young lady intelligently taking cover and even going so far as to search the surroundings, lobbing you salts, ammo or money when required. She can also pick locks and open tears in space and time, allowing you to ask her to bring through assistance such as turrets, drones or cover during some of the trickier battles.

Graphically, there is little that surpasses this game on modern consoles. The environments are varied enough without ever being jarring and seeing the city both sparkling in sunlight and shrouded in darkness are equally satisfying. Enemies are insanely designed enough for you to know that you’re in a BioShock game and despite Infinite being set a fair few years before the first two in the franchise, similar stylistic themes prevail.

A special mention should also go to the soundtrack. Not only are the voice actors involved all on top form (including veteran Troy Baker as Booker) the music throughout is everything from haunting to jolly to maniacal, topped off by a brilliant cover of Tears For Fears ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’.

So, is this game better than the first Bioshock? Possibly. It does look even better than its forebear, whilst the mechanics have been tweaked just enough so that it is familiar but also as tight as a gnat’s chuff.

There are a couple of minor quibbles, however. Medium difficulty generally gives you plenty of opportunity and cash to restock with ammo, but a random section suddenly provided me with zero ammunition for an extended length of time. Fortunately, this only served to make me more resourceful with my vigors and Sky-Hook. There are also a couple of ‘stuck in the scenery’ moments when the area you’re in becomes particularly dark (warning kids – don’t knock your brightness right down at the start) and the game also glitched once, refusing to let me past without a reboot, but presumably that will get fixed with a patch.

All in all, BioShock Infinite is a stunning game. As soon as I completed it I had to sit in awe, watching the credits and taking some deep breaths, trying to digest all that had been presented to me over a pretty mammoth 15+ hour journey through Columbia and beyond. 2K Games have delivered an astonishing, thinking person’s shooter that sucks you so far into its world, you’ll wonder if you or Booker will ever escape.

When I think about the zombie apocalypse, I don’t tend to think of it as starting in Manchester and involving more orienteering than the average cub camp. But when the opportunity arose to play kiss chase with the undead on a dark Thursday night, I jumped at the chance.

Let me rewind a little. A while ago, some of us at work were discussing horror films, tv shows, and video games, as per usual, when the subject of survival tactics in the event of a zombie holocaust arose. After discussing how to defend deserted castles and the best way to make supplies last, we stumbled upon a company running something called 2.8 Hours Later. Being big fans of the namesake films, we explored it a bit more.

It turned out that it was in fact a city-wide zombie chase game, the objective being very simple, get from checkpoint to checkpoint without succumbing to the ‘infection’. The game takes place on specific dates in selected cities around the country and begins in a secret location. From there you are given co-ordinates, and using a map you move from one place to the next chatting to the odd survivor and obtaining important information along the way.

As part of a colleague’s 21 years of service at our company, we bought him four tickets to the Manchester one and left it up to him who to invite, knowing that we could snaffle some more tickets if he had a few interested parties.

As they day of the event drew near, we started to research what we could expect. We didn’t want spoilers as such, just a bit of a head’s up as to what may occur and how the whole thing worked. We saw videos on YouTube of zombie hen parties, car park horror and mad sprints to the safety of the finish line. All of which seemed pretty ruddy TERRIFYING.

On the day itself, it’s fair to say that a fair few nerves were jangling. We prepped by buying torches, expecting a few pitch black haunted house style moments. Other than that we didn’t really have much else other than ourselves to rely on when we hit the first location in a slightly less than salubrious locale in darkest Ancoats. After a briefing and a bit of a queue, the four of us were released along with our two additional team mates with the simple job of heading left and then right, and it wasn’t long before we encountered a lady in a dressing gown, out in the street.

Not too uncommon a sight in the area, we soon realised she was actually our first zombie apocalypse survivor. She told us that she was looking for her paramedic husband and gave us the co-ordinates of where she heard there may be more survivors. Following the road around, we had our first undead episode. Feeling cocky, and seeing the slow pace of the zombie in question, we decided to sprint nearby rather than taking a wider berth. It wasn’t until halfway down the street that we realised there were three and that their taste for human flesh gave them a decent lick of pace.

Arriving at the next location, we waited outside a small housing showroom. One slight problem with the game appeared to be that the sheer amount of players meant there was some bunching at key locations, but it did thin out later on. After a bit of a queue our group was let in by the salesman. As the situation turned nasty, we were ordered out directly past two zombies, our legs a blur as we pegged it clear.

Heading towards town we entered a church. The vicar was sat near the altar, deep in prayer. Knowing we needed information, we accepted her offer of helping to pray for the missing, only for her to lash at the nearest of a group as it became apparent she was chained up and infected.

Next up, we encountered an office block and were let in and told to follow a stairwell up. After a fair few flights, we emerged onto an empty, but brightly lit office space…with a zombie in the middle. Needless to say we wasted little time in hurtling to the door, and up another flight, only to encounter another member of the undead. Another quick trot and we came to the office boss who gave us further co-ordinates.

As we headed towards central Manchester it started to dawn on us how odd it probably seemed to the Thursday drinkers and shoppers that loads of luminous-arm banded people were navigating around the city. But it wasn’t until we got to the main shopping stretch, Market Street that things got even stranger. Realising we had to get from one end to the other, we soon noted that to do so, we’d have to run through a group of three or four zombies.

As they shuffled around they appeared harmless enough, so I chose a pretty direct route, only to find that they were quick. Very quick. I didn’t look back as I was very much in flight mode, but by all accounts they were on my shoulder for much of the dash. We lost a team member in this section, discovering she’d been tagged as she ran through. The tagging took the form of the zombie touching you, which meant you had to stop and be marked by said zombie, and at the end of the game, everyone was scanned for signs of having been caught.

At the bottom of Market Street we encountered the paramedic we had seen in the picture earlier. After telling him we’d seen his wife previously, he gave us a map reference for St Anne’s square, another prime, busy, city centre location. The task here was to help a diabetic lady by getting her some of her sweets from outside a shop on nearby King Street. This truly was a challenge considering the road was relatively narrow, and filled with shoppers. Oh and three prime zombies.

This was our first real attempt at tactics as we tried a few times to draw them from the bag and allow another runner to go for the target. After a few attempts we succeeded and headed back to receive our reward.

Our next location was outside Urbis, where a scientist was claiming to have found a way to tame the zombies. She encouraged us to get closer and even pet them, before once again, the inevitable happened and they ran directly for us. Another brilliantly jumpy moment, which we laughed about as we went on our way. We eventually got to a skate park where a woman was asking for help for her prostrate boyfriend. Not trusting the situation this time we were quick to get our next location and prepare to dash, as sure enough he rose to his feet and chased us out.

Approaching two and a half hours in, we presumed the end was near, and encountered the safety of a pub housing a single lady. Once again though, all was not as it seemed, and in a brilliant nod to Shaun of the Dead, the opening bars of Don’t Stop Me Now struck up on the jukebox and a zombie appeared behind her. Not hanging around we, legged it once more and onto our final location.

We encountered a square, on the other side of which was the solace of the survivor camp. Unfortunately, the narrower of the two routes through had two female zombies lurking, whilst the other was a wider path but had two male zombies present with a couple more tucked around the corner for good measure. After a few test attempts, we all ended up choosing different tactics. I preferred to try the wider route and it was here that I was finally infected, on the home stretch.

We got to the end, pretty exhausted but exhilarated with the reward being a zombie disco full of survivors alongside the infected players who had been made-up to look like the undead.

A few members of the general public along the way did ask what we were doing and we were happy to give out free promotion for something which can only be called a very different way to spend an evening out and about.

Yes it was just a game and we weren’t going to get chomped for real, but I fully admit that I took it all pretty seriously and even succumbed to a few zombie movie cliches in my attempts to survive. Overall, the night turned out to be a brilliant, exhilarating, energetic event that any genre fan should have a go on. Be prepared to run, be prepared to be scared. But most of all, be prepared to be entertained by a great one of a kind night out.

Handheld gaming has been around for longer than most people think, with Mattel releasing the first electronic palm pleaser way back in 1976. Over 30 years on and almost everyone has a gaming device of significant power in their pocket in the form of their mobile phone. Casual gaming at its zenith, mobile apps give short sharp experiences particularly suitable for killing time on the daily commute or for the instant gratification required by this time-poor nation of ours. Strangely, it is against this backdrop that Sony has decided to launch a new dedicated handheld gaming device, the PS Vita; but why did they choose this moment? And is the console that nobody needs actually any good?

Before I write about that, maybe it’s time to look back at how the handheld gaming industry has evolved. My first experience of handheld gaming (other than a Speak & Spell) probably came with the Nintendo Game & Watch series. My brother owned Snoopy Tennis and Donkey Kong (on two screens!) and I had a copy of Mario’s Cement Factory and Donkey Kong Jr. I still remember us spending long summers competing for top scores whilst staying at our grandparents, the speed at which Snoopy Tennis could ramp up to was incredible and challenged even the most nimble of childhood fingers.

Whilst they were simple LCD delights, these games absorbed hours of our lives, but after dabbling in TV-based console gaming it was time to call in the big guns and invest in a Game Boy. The monochrome device is still a classic today, combining simplistic gaming and a massive range of A-quality titles from launch in late 1990. Car journeys became far more interesting, especially when my Dad also got one so we could cable them together and duel at Tetris. I probably completed Super Mario Land about 100 times and never tired of handing out cans of whoop-ass at Tennis with Mario himself as my umpire.

The colour wonders of the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx may have been more visually impressive, but they never caught on as much as the Game Boy, mainly due to their crippling battery sucking prowess, and the Game Boy sold over 25 million units in its first two or three years. The success of the original Game Boy was such that Nintendo didn’t bother updating the device until nearly a decade after its initial Japanese launch with the release of the Game Boy Colour in 1998, followed swiftly by the Game Boy Advance in 2001 and Game Boy Advance SP in 2003. With the latter two consoles, Nintendo continued to do what they did best, creating brilliantly accessible gaming experiences that were loved by old and young alike. I for one loved my SP and again spent long journeys trying to beat my foes around a Mario Kart track or two.

By this time though, there was a new player in home videogaming; Sony. It wasn’t long before the Japanese electronics giant saw a new market to tap into and were soon announcing a more ‘grown up’ handheld, the Sony PSP. Combining PlayStation 2 levels of processor power and a beautiful widescreen display, the new handheld offered a very tempting proposition for the hardcore gamer.

Of course Nintendo weren’t going to take this challenge lying down, but rather than rival the PSP for power, they did what they always do best and got to work on innovation and accessibility. Launching the Nintendo DS shortly before the PSP, the console used an interesting dual screen concept, one of which featured relatively untested touch screen technology. The DS offered the staple Nintendo delights of Mario but also tapped into the growing casual gamer market with short gimmicky games that offered players the ability to play around with what they saw on screen with a stylus or their finger. The machine was a good device that again trumped its rival on battery life, but it couldn’t handle portable equivalents of some of the big home console titles like the PSP could. Aesthetically it also failed to hit the mark and I was surprised by how big, bulky and toy-like it felt when I first got hold of my hot of the press machine.

Sony’s PSP on the other hand, went for a different focus. Using a new format of media, the UMD, Sony tried to make the machine fit for both high-end gaming as well as movies on the move. Unfortunately, Sony hadn’t learned their lesson after the failure of the MiniDisc and UMD films were soon available at stupidly cheap prices when their popularity failed to catch on. The PSP also suffered somewhat with its controls, the single analogue ‘nub’ being no substitute for twin sticks on its console big brother, and the machine’s ergonomics (or lack thereof) gave some severe hand cramps after prolonged sessions on Wipeout Pure or Ridge Racer.

I was still pretty pleased with mine, but the launch titles weren’t anything to really write home about. In fact, Sony probably never had a true killer app on the PSP throughout the machine’s lifetime as it never really decided what sort of gaming device it wanted to be; unable to handle First Person Shooters with its limited controls, but also too good to just throw simple mini games your way.

Combined with a poor battery life, the console never really hit its potential despite numerous redesigns and an eventual shift to non-UMD download-only gaming with the PSP Go.

Nintendo were also busy at refining their DS concept and the hugely popular DS Lite with its Brain Training software suddenly collared a whole new older demographic. Mums, Dads and Grandparents were all putting the device on their Christmas lists and Nintendo even responded to growing demand with a fogey-friendly DSi XL featuring a much larger screen and pre-installed software.

Now here we are in the 8th Generation of handheld gaming and the two competitors aren’t actually fighting each other anymore. Instead, it’s almost as if they have chosen to both go up against their mobile nemesis the smartphone, trying to prove that a dedicated gaming device is still relevant in the 21st Century.

Having led from the front in the touch screen world before smartphones had barely even tried, Nintendo took a further gamble by dipping into the juvenile 3D market with its 3DS handheld. Souped up processing power and goggle-free 3D visuals were promised and despite some concern over the quality of the 3D effect and the impact on infant eyes, the 3DS still offered a brand new concept and a new spin on the classic Mario Kart and Mario World titles.

Not to be outdone, Sony swung even further towards their own bread and butter; hardcore gaming. The PS Vita was announced as an almost PS3-powered machine with an overhauled operating system, front and rear touch screens, dual analogue sticks and a new memory card format for their games to boot.

It was almost as if they had suddenly realised what they wanted the PSP to do all along (in fact the Vita is far more comparable to original PSP concepts designs than the PSP itself ever was). But the fact remains that we’re in a world of smartphone dominance where many fail to even get time to play triple-A rated games on their home consoles, let alone crowbar a slot into their day to rattle through yet more titles on the move.

I’ve only just got my Vita and my 3DS has yet to have that full a workout, but shortly, you’re going to find out whether it’s Sony or Nintendo who have really found handheld heaven.

You can tell it’s nearly Christmas when the latest video games all have a number in their titles. Unfortunately I’m a sucker for a decent franchise and do buy into the possibility that sequels can sometimes overtake their predecessors. One odd one to this rule though is FIFA.

Over the years I’ve been all over the place with footy games. I started on the Spectrum with Football Manager, watching my 80s Liverpool side trounce Crewe Alexandra et al each week after some tactical dealings in the transfer market and watching the highlights of the match in 8-bit jerk-a-thon.

Next up came MatchDay 2 (I must have missed the first game) and finally I had full control over my team of stuttering melon-headed players. Not a classic, but I had a few decent rounds of the game which was probably more akin to rugby than football.

The mid-90s then saw a football revolution. FIFA 95 and 95, the isometric utopia of soccerball fun arrived and I was as happy as a pig in the proverbial. Wonder goals would go flying in, and I even created an all-black kit-wearing team that consisted entirely of Pat Nevin from one to 11. Don’t ask. But they were world beaters.

At the same time, my computer-owning friends weren’t left out with the genius of the Sensible Soccer games coming to their Amigas and Atari STs. I still have fond, fond memories of sticking a finger up at hayfever by taking my Sega Megadrive joypad to my friend’s house to play hours of Sensi World over the school summer holidays, pausing only for a quick Southern Comfort and Tango raided from his parent’s drinks cupboard (it felt like a summer-y concoction at the time).

But after these glory years, it all went a bit, well, wrong. FIFA 97 on the Sega Saturn (I had upgraded my Megadrive) introduced what can only be described as “ice-rink” physics, with David Ginola and Chris Sutton alike skidding all over the place like demented penguins. The five a side mode was still fun, but the game had lost its spark.

Then a new challenger emerged, World League Soccer. Initially tricksy controls and a tendency to crash very, very frequently (most games did on the Saturn) didn’t put me off this little gem. On going to University, we played quite a bit of WLS until other’s loans arrived and PlayStations were soon being snapped up, leading to the inevitable return of FIFA.

FIFA at University didn’t need to be a world-beater. It didn’t need to be an in-depth, hugely involving simulation. It needed to be quick to pick up and play and addictive enough to play all night with only Asda’s own Scotch and a few friends for company.

And sure enough, FIFA did just that. I think I still have the hand-scribbled league tables of Liverpool doing the business over Sheffield Wedneday, Bolton Wanderers and Man Utd on regular occasions. It didn’t matter that many of the games ended 8-7 after over-use of the through ball that was a dead cert every single time. It still brought about some amazing all-nighters and some shockingly poor essays written with bleary-eyed regret the next day.

When I left Higher Education, I didn’t really know where to turn video game-wise. I’d always stuck with Sega, but Sony, this new pretender to the throne, seemed to be making all the right noises. The Dreamcast was a thing of genius but expensive and liable to be obsolete in record time, so I sided with the newly-minted PlayStation 2 in all its black boxy beauty.

Soon after, the decision had to be made, which football game do I go for on my new console? I’d played ISS Pro on PSOne at University and found it a bit too simulation-y for my liking, so I didn’t really fancy Pro Evolution Soccer, its natural successor. But could FIFA hold a place in my heart after a few years away? I tried to love FIFA again, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I decided instead to see what all the fuss was about Pro Evo, and I was instantly hooked. Absolutely, this was the game I had waited ten years for (albeit full of made up player names and stadia, but I could painstakingly hand-alter them). Even after three or four sequels, the game held up strongly against the cheap and tiresome cash in of subsequent FIFAs (I kept on playing the demos just in case), and their ghetto-based “Street” series. I even tried the FIFA games out on PSP, but they were probably even worse.

Suddenly though, EA knew they’d dropped a major clanger and shipped development of FIFA off to Canada of all places, and the magic returned, just at a time when the lack of official licenses was really starting to grate on Pro Evo. I dipped back to the dark side and haven’t looked back since.

The options. The licences. The likenesses. The animations. The shots. The online multiplayer. The genius of little dinked through balls and chipped shots over the on-rushing keeper. Playing with work friends over the Internet is now like playing out those epic confrontations on Sensi World in a friend’s bedroom circa 1995, albeit with less of the Diner soundtrack and more of the responsibility of having to get up at a ridiculously early hour the next day.

But with each iteration comes that inevitability that EA will change something that could be a game-changer all over again. FIFAs 09, 10 and 11 made subtle changes, but despite that initial joy-pad throwing hissy fit, after a couple of games, it’s always been easy to get back into the swing of things.

But FIFA 12 has arrived. It’s scarily got a bit at the start which teaches you how to defend all over again, fighting against three years of experience and instinct of doing it completely differently. It’s less arcadey. It’s….not quite FIFA. It’s going to be a rough ride…

Well, it’s long overdue and by not-at-all popular demand, I thought I would update my views on the console wars circa 2009.

You may remember that nearly two years ago, I posted that Microsoft hit the ground running with some great exclusives, a great online facility and a real drive to corner the hardcore gamer market with their Xbox 360. On the flip side, Sony seemed to be too pre-occupied with the HD wars, weren’t really focused on a particular demographic, and the price point of PS3 was putting people off in droves.

So what’s new? The Wii seems to have had its five minutes of fame and been slightly exposed for the underpowered gimmick that it is. Conversely, both Microsoft and Sony have recently unveiled motion senor-based controlling mechanisms. There are far fewer console exclusives out there these days, even Metal Gear Solid has gone multi-format. HD-DVD is dead and gone. And Gran Turismo 5 STILL isn’t out.

Personally I continue to buy games across both console formats, but mainly on 360 for the still-better-than-Sony’s controller, especially for First Person Shooters, the online service they offer via Xbox Live, and the strangely competitive nature of the achievements system.

But, my patience with Microsoft has been stretched to breaking point at times. I, like many others got the dreaded Red Ring Of Death on my 360, originally after only having had it for about 18 months. To be fair though, MS managed to pick it up, repair it and admit that the faults were more widespread than first thought, having their hand forced into offering everyone an extended warranty on their console “just in case.” It wasn’t the first time I had to send a console off to get fixed either, my old PS2 once gave up the ghost and I had to send it off to Sony for repair, which ended up costing about £60 (from memory). Not the best customer experience when it was me that was the one out of pocket.

Unfortunately, despite updated chip-sets and increased storage capacity, the newer 360s on the market still sound like aircraft taking off, making them unusable for movie watching. The ability to install games to the hard drive quietens things down a bit, but this relies on you having available disk space, and actually wanting to wait for the thing to install rather than just plugging in and playing away. It was never a possibility on my Xbox 360 Premium edition as the 20GB harddrive soon got full with game saves and downloadable extra content for various games. So much so that I couldn’t even download demos anymore, so I was kind of relieved when I got my second Red Ring (!) and found myself with a good reason to upgrade to the black Xbox 360 Elite, complete with 120GB harddrive. This beast is a bit quieter than its predecessor, but compared to the PS3 it’s still a roaring lion next to a little squeaky mouse. Having said that, it is easy to set up, the new £199 price point is more than agreeable, and the free data transfer kit made getting all my old stuff off the Premium a doddle.

Microsoft’s relatively recent NXE (New Xbox Experience) has also made the menu system even simpler to use, although the use of avatars which the player can dress up and buy additional clothes/jewellery etc for seemed shoe-horned in for the younger market. Nevertheless, it’s mildly amusing playing around with the look of these little on-screen personas and they are being used in a more mainstream way now in games such as Guitar Hero 5 where your avatar will appear on stage as you play.

And what have Sony been up to? Well, they initially chucked a slew of differently memory-ed consoles at the consumer (sneakily removing PS2 backwards compatability without telling anyone at the same time). They then managed to release PlayStation Home for free, tart up their menu system and online store and introduce their trophies (their version of Microsoft’s achievements). Then, recently, they released the PS3 Slim, shaving some size off their behemoth of a machine.

The larger disk space consoles didn’t really do much to increase sales for Sony, but gradually, as the ridiculous £425 launch price came down, and rumble-enhanced controllers began to be included as standard, a few gamers started to take a punt. Helped hugely by Blu-ray winning the war over HD-DVD, tech-savvy consumers then saw the opportunity to pick up a relatively inexpensive media hub in the shape of a PS3 and sales grew.

Trophies seem to have made it easier for developers to use the same reward systems on both 360 and PS3 versions of all new releases, giving gamers something to compete over which in turn encourages people to replay games.

What continues to be an oddity though is the PlayStation Home game/facility/whatever the hell it is. Again, it features an avatar for you to dress up and you can trek around various zones which only seem to serve the purpose of advertising recent or upcoming games. There are a few very simple free games in there that you can have a crack at, but why buy a top of the range console and proceed to play oddities that you’d usually only consider if you had five minutes to kill and fancied an uninvolving flash-based game? It also seems that whenever you are bored enough to go and peek into Home, it forces you to download and install new areas or updates so frequently that you don’t end up spending much time actually DOING anything. And why is it that downloads from both Home and the PlayStation Store itself still take so long compared to the speed of Xbox Live content?

The base PS3 XMB (Cross Media Bar) menu system has benefitted from numerous updates however. There’s VidZone for those who fancy catching up on recent music videos. Even BBC iPlayer is there in all its glory. The Internet browser isn’t great but it’s functional. 360 has yet to even have one, the nearest they’ve come being the forthcoming Facebook and Twitter functionality. And let’s not forget that the PS3 online service is still free so gamers are more likely to accept that it isn’t as advanced yet as the 360’s flashy £40 a year interface.

In spite of its faults, the PS3 also remains more reliable, quieter, and the controller is still slightly more familiar for sports games. Having the weight of Sony behind it, who have been in the game far longer than Microsoft also helps, and the lure of Gran Turismo, Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, InFamous, Resistance and Motorstorm exclusivity means that realistically I’m happy to still have both consoles nestled under my TV. Although I must say that I’m more than happy to have an older PS3 that looks far sleeker with touch-sensitive buttons and a glossy finish rather than the recent matt-look slim PS3, but presumably Sony had to cut costs somewhere in order to sell it at the new £250 price so making it LOOK cheaper must have seemed to be the easiest option.

And what of other videogamers and their behaviours? Of the 14 people (all of whom I still know personally) on my Xbox Live friends list, pretty much all of them have had to return their machines to Microsoft for repair at least once. Two of them don’t even have Xboxes anymore, the reason for one – they bought a PS3 instead. Of the other 12, not all of them play all that often at all, and when they do return to their machines, they may well find that their £40 a year Live subscription has expired anyway.

Funnily enough, my PS3 friends list has grown. Again, these are all people I know, not 13 year olds from New Jersey, but I now have a collection of people, some of whom, like me have both Xbox 360 and PS3. Some are converts to the PS3 phenomenon, others are old PS2 fans who have been waiting for the dust and the prices to settle before jumping into the next gen console wars.

One thing’s for sure – both Sony and Microsoft seem happy to co-exist for now, testing out bits and pieces of functionality, software, hardware and add-ons before even thinking about their next gambit. For once, it looks like the big boys are taking a considered approach to new console development, rather than continually rushing out new hardware before we truly need it, and that can only be good news for us consumers.

It is nearly a year since PlayStation 3 hit the UK and so I felt it was about the right time to sum up my feelings on the next-gen console wars.

I love a good console launch, lots of excitement, people importing foreign machines for silly amounts of money, simply because they have to have the latest kit before anyone else. Then there is the pre-ordering, the ebaying and the random stories about Yanks whooping at big midnight launch parties. What’s not to like?

During the PS2/Xbox days I was very much in the Sony camp – they had a better controller, a quieter, sleeker machine, far more games and some really good exclusives such as Tomb Raider, Pro Evolution Soccer & Grand Theft Auto (for a time), Gran Turismo, Ratchet & Clank, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, God of War, WWE Smackdown, Virtua Fighter (I won’t include Metal Gear Solid as I’m not a huge fan of sneaking around and watching cut scenes for hours). Hell, I even liked Killzone.

Microsoft had tried going for grunt and raw processing power but in trying to steal into what was the PC-only territory of online First Person Shooters, they ignored the key PS2 younger audience and priced themselves out of the market. The depth and classy infrastructure of the first two Halo games (especially online) was very tempting but the original Xbox had little else to offer.

On the flip side, the only thing for Sony to improve after the success of PS2 was their online gaming service. But they got complacent. Bunging a Blu-ray player into PlayStation 3 is all well and good for those who have already upgraded their TVs, but for many others it wasn’t enough. In a reversal of fortunes, Microsoft focused on the fun and a community spirit with 360 whilst Sony meandered into multimedia hub territory.

I didn’t actually get a 360 on release day. I wasn’t intending to get one straight away anyway as I felt the PlayStation 2 still had plenty left to offer. I did pick up a core 360 system from johnlewis.com at 9am on launch day back in 2005 but I ebayed it to raise some funds.

After doing so, however, and having seen some of the early 360 games in action on HD televisions in Game, I decided to get a 360 for myself. Eventually, after lots of exciting chats with store employees over stock availability, I managed to snaffle one from argos.co.uk.

Upon firing it up and playing a bit of Call of Duty 2, Quake 4 and Perfect Dark Zero I was hooked. It didn’t matter that Microsoft were playing safe with sequels, these were all top drawer sequels and only scratched the surface of what the 360 could do.

Sony missed a trick again by delaying the European launch of PS3 until March 2007. The 360 had time to build its fan base and library of games. People got bored of waiting and so switched allegiances from Sony to Microsoft.

Suddenly Microsoft could do no wrong. The second wave of 360 games brought modern classics such as Lost Planet, Gears of War and Call of Duty 3 to the machine, then two years down the line we got real triple-A next-gen titles such as Bioshock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Halo 3. Even though some of these appeared on PS3 as well, it was too little too late.

When PS3 did launch, I dutifully picked one up from Virgin after pre-ordering but it was soon apparent that I didn’t need to do so as stock was plentiful. Whether this should mean kudos to Sony’s manufacturing plants or whether it is a worrying sign of people not having £400+ quite soon after Christmas to spend on another new console I am still not sure to this day.

PS3 launch games were okay but not great – Motorstorm is admittedly one of the most fun racing games of recent years and Resistance was a half-decent shooter, but there was no real excitement over the exclusive titles. Where was MGS? GTA? DMC? GT? What else could Sony offer the gamer? Motion sensing controls which felt like a tacked on, badly implemented, last minute idea? Less backwards compatibility than every other world territory? No controller rumble? All sadly present and correct.

Within a year of release, it is telling that Sony first bundled Motorstorm and Resistance: Fall of Man and an extra controller with the machine for the same £425 launch price, then cut the console price itself by nigh-on £100, then released a more basic model for £299.

It is also telling that Sony are in the process of releasing a rumble-enabled controller, and launching their online Sims/Myspace/Facebook hybrid interactive social “game” Home, complete with achievement-style “trophies” for nailing certain feats within games.

I cannot believe it has taken Sony this long to realise the impact that the achievement system has had on modern day gaming. Similar to the old-school arcade high-score battles of the eighties, achievements really force people to make the most of their games and add a sense of competition against friends and even unknown online acquaintances. I have (perhaps tragically) sold some PS3 games without playing them in order to get them on 360 simply because of the achievements adding a little something extra. I always used to get the majority of my games on PS2 and just get exclusive titles on Xbox but now this situation has completely reversed.

Also, the head start now really shows – I have 11 friends on Xbox Live, all of which I know personally. I have yet to encounter anyone else I know who has bought a PS3, therefore the online elements of many PS3 games are redundant to me.

I don’t usually bother with that much online gaming, apart from when friends are online anyway, but it is fascinating to get a snapshot via Xbox Live of what other people on my friends list are doing and how far they have gotten in their games compared to my own progress.

When I do venture online, Microsoft’s advantage is even more apparent. Through their long-standing relationship with Bungie, they have really nailed the very best in online gaming systems with Halo 3, including the ability to check stats on the Internet after marathon frag-fests. Shooting your friends has never been such fun, and by being backed up by third-party developers, Microsoft are riding the crest of the modern gaming wave.

To sum up, Sony will no doubt cope with all the PS3 uncertainty and produce some killer titles in the next couple of years. We can expect them to really start harnessing the processing power of PS3 and show us things we never thought possible and that the 360 simply can’t compete with – but do not forget, this is what Microsoft tried to do in the last generation and they fell well short of success.

Sony will probably consistently come second to Microsoft in Europe due to the ground already lost. It is important to note, however, that the videogaming landscape of 2008 is a very different place to that of a couple of years ago. Third-party developers will no longer produce so many exclusive titles as it simply isn’t cost effective to release a game on only one system. Similarly, we cannot expect first party titles to always blow us away, there will eventually be a limit to the technology – although with not even a rumour of any PS4s or Xbox 720s, the two big guns look to be in this current-gen war for a long while yet. Something has to give, but this particular war is far from over.